


Newton's Third Law

by glitterandlube



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-03
Updated: 2010-08-03
Packaged: 2017-10-10 22:34:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/105122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitterandlube/pseuds/glitterandlube





	Newton's Third Law

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ethrosdemon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ethrosdemon/gifts).



On Atlantis:

"Look, Elizabeth we just need to take the jumpers underwater for an hour at the most. That way we can explore the bottom of Atlantis! Think of how much we could advance scientific knowledge!"

Rodney nods emphatically, "Who knows what is under there? Maybe something could be breaking, and ready to burst, and we'd never know because we didn't look." John gives him an encouraging look.

Elizabeth raises an eyebrow at Rodney, "Aren't there sensors under there?"

Rodney glances to the side, "Maybe." John kicks Rodney's chair.

Elizabeth sighs, "The last time I let you do something like this, John ended up stuck in a water tube for seven hours."

Rodney scowls, "That was an accident, and we got him out. He's fine. Look at him. Fine."

John perks up, "It was fun having gills! How come Beckett wouldn't let me keep them?"

"I think he was afraid you would turn into a merman." Rodney waved his hand around like a flipper.

"Would I have a tail?"

"Maybe. Hey, we could..."

"No, you could not. Rodney, you need to go back to the lab. John, don't you owe me some paperwork on the rotations for next month?"

John pouts and slumps down into his chair, "...no."

They both frown at Elizabeth. She shakes her head and reaches for her computer to show John the total lack of e-mails from him on subject relating to rotations, but she still catches Rodney gesturing at his head and mouthing 'mom hair' as John claps his hand over his mouth trying not to laugh. They both straighten up as she looks at them, with perfect innocent looks on their faces. Well, John has a perfect innocent look, Rodney is kind of looking intensely at the ceiling.

Teyla had laughed at their disappointed faces afterward, and watched them try to plot an entirely new way to scheme Elizabeth into giving them what they wanted. Teyla's project that day was trying to get them to wear skirts to go on a mission to MPX-948, because it was the way of the planet's people, but John's face had darkened, and he muttered, "I'm not falling for that shit again" and stomped off.

Rodney spent the rest of the afternoon with Zelenka gleefully rearranging the many not at all secret pictures Ford had taken of John in prom queen drag complete with a shiny princess tiara on MPX-285. They were admiring the lovely shades of green in the dress and how well it matched Sheppard's eyes when John strolled in, saw what they were looking at, and started threatening to cut Rodney's man parts off. At least that is how Rodney was filtering it through his head, because hearing John say absolutely anything about touching Rodney's cock in any way was a place Rodney could not go without having to lock himself in his room for a few hours.

Rodney may have said something potentially embarrasing about John's legs, but since everyone in the lab agreed with him, John was really the only one looking like he wanted to die. It was kind of an up day for Rodney all and all. So of course the Ancients came by for an extended visit the next day.

On Earth:

The first day back on Earth, Rodney goes on an errand that he refuses to let John accompany him on, and comes back as John is staring in dim fear at his new office. Maybe if he made Rodney build him a fish tank? He tells himself he's too manly to cry, but it's so silent and empty. He slumps behind the desk and kicks the legs, feeling just like an elementary school teacher. If he has nightmares about being killed by five year olds in face paint, he's totally suing for job trauma. Just as he starts to attack the desk with a letter opener, Rodney runs in, beaming happily at him before handing him something that looks like a hand held video game. John takes it and immediately starts frowning.

"It's a global positioning system! With a built-in compass! For people with no fucking sense of direction. Do you know anyone like that?" Rodney bounces a little and John huffs. They spend the rest of the day listening to various people brief them about the Ori and various other dangers of the Milky Way galaxy, while Rodney keeps trying to show John how to use the GPS. [See, this is North. It's that way. Do you know what a latitude is? until John starts hitting him with one of the binder covers they use to hold report no. 6399 of how we keep fucking the hell up and shit.]

They end up in some apartment the SGC gave John because neither of them want to be in the SGC any longer than necessary. They order food from five different places, and spend hours eating the grossest combinations of food they can think of, until John never wants to see Greek food ever again. They tell really stupid stories about going off world in between throwing pieces of calamari at each other.

"Remember that time we lost Ronon for five hours on that planet where everyone was wearing robes and had bunny slippers?"

"Yeah, and when he finally turned up he was covered in pink dye that wouldn't come off for three days afterwards? That was awesome. Even Teyla was laughing herself sick."

"How did he get it out of his hair?"

"I really don't know. Hey, What about that planet with all the hookers? It's too bad they didn't have anything useful to trade."

"You mean, it's too bad Carson was on the mission with us, and gave that long epic lecture about space herpes and I couldn't uncross my legs for three hours afterwards. And of course, that was your favorite planet."

"I don't remember you being too upset when that woman flashed her boobs at you, and then started making out with her, was that her sister?"

"I think they were twins." Rodney got a vaguely dreamy look on his face.

"Huh, remember the planet were we almost got eaten by polar bears?"

"What?" Rodney stares at John, while inching away on the couch.

"Right, you fainted at the beginning of that mission and Ronon had to drag you around on this sled thing he made with his bare hands out of a tree he knocked over himself. I guess you missed all that."

"That did not happen."

"I think it did. Teyla took off her top and danced in a circle of naked women too. To AC/DC, it's really too bad you weren't awake for any of it. Then she took off her skirt and started to.."

Rodney throws a tiny butter soaked octopus at John and watches it slide down John's face as he laughs. It plops in his lap and John smiles at Rodney, happy right now at least. Tomorrow though, that desk is totally going to be his bitch. Rodney can be his bitch right now.

"So what should we do?"

"We're watching TV," Rodney gestures towards the TV, and changes the channel again.

"Right, but we should do something! We're stuck on this crappy planet, we should like, I don't know, do something with hookers and a lot of whiskey, and maybe blow up a mall?"

"I don't know which one of those to take first? Have you ever fucked a hooker?"

"No. I don't think so. Well, no one has ever asked for money afterwards. There could have been hookers. Have you?"

"Once. It was...really. I'm never doing that again. I felt horrible and couldn't stop showering afterwards. She could have slept with thousands of people potentially. I don't like feeling like I'm one of thousands."

John stares at Rodney, "You're not one of thousands ever, Rodney. I think we need more beer."

"And cupcakes."

"How can you think of more food? I want to throw up right now just looking at all this crap."

"Throw up on your side of the couch."

"Remember that time Teyla threw up on the chief of MPX-409? God, that was hilarious."

"If by hilarious, we mean we almost died yet again, and then Teyla also threw up in the puddle jumper, which never smelled right no matter what I made my minions do armed only with a toothbrush, baking soda, and a deep germ phobia, then yes, it was hilarious."

"Come on, Rodney, it was funny."

"Okay, for a brief moment, it was funny. Especially when the guy started yelling about his sacred elf shoes and how she had offended the gods of elf land. And then when she opened her mouth to apologize and did it again. Okay, yes, that was funny. How about that time you decided to take a leak on what turned out to be a sacred rock?"

"They wanted to cut off my dick! That was not funny!"

"Oh yes, it was. You were running around covering your crotch screaming about crazy amazon bitches. That was hilarious, I almost wet myself."

"What did we tell Elizabeth about that one?"

"It was a planet full of man haters, and that I should be allowed to film it for lesbian porn purposes for the good of the base. She threw us all of her office."

"Right. I thought she was going to throw that stupid bowl of people at your head."

"She did once."

"Really? You didn't tell me that."

"I can't tell you, I was sworn to secrecy. I can only say it involved two botanists, Lorne, Zelenka, a robot dog, and three of those plants that have rainbow petals. Oh, and a picture of the Lord of the Rings cast. Oh! Also Miko's one personal item, which is a She-Ra Action Figure."

"You're making that up."

"I am really not, remember how Zelenka kept making Carson say second breakfast for a month, and we all laughed ourselves sick on the floor and you acted like a whiny little bitch because you felt left out?"

"Yes. Asshole. That sucked."

"Sorry. You deserved it for refusing to dress up like Spock on Halloween."

"Rodney."

"The entire science team voted. Simpson made you the costume with her bare hands."

"Jesus, you guys all act like I'm your pet or something."

Rodney carefully pulled his hand away from John's hair, and muttered about getting a cat again. John sulked.

Rodney left the next morning to go to Nevada, John saw him off to the plane where he yelled, "GOOD LUCK WITH ALL THE HOOKERS DOWN THERE!" causing Rodney to trip over the last step and fall into the plane. Sadly, they wouldn't let him back off to go beat anyone to death. The sole female scientist kept giving him creeped out looks the entire ride down as Rodney muttered about poison and how it might react to hair gel.

There was a message on Rodney's phone when he got off that said simply, "I will say this only once. I snuck into the women's changing room and took a picture of Samantha Carter's naked ass for you. We will never speak of this again." Rodney opened the picture and made a loud, embarassing noise of joy. All was forgiven.

The next time they talked, Rodney tried to convince John to hack into the security system and get him a video of Carter shaving her legs until John hung up on him in disgust. They spent the next month arguing about porn and John going off world, and whether or not it was okay to eat whipped cream directly from a can in front of other people.

They met for waffles once half-way between their respective bases at three in the morning. Rodney put chocolate syrup on his, while John made little robot faces by carefully cutting out selected squares. Which he then used to quietly attack Rodney, causing them to get kicked out of a waffle house. Sadly, that didn't even touch the most embarassing parts of either of their lives.

John was now addicted to EverQuest, and Rodney was slowly programming a MMORPG that took place in a shiny castle on the water. The characters had to fight off vampires, and one had very messy hair and a sexy thigh holster. John grinned at the specs and gave Rodney a hug as they split up again. John let himself cling to Rodney for five whole minutes, counting off in base 5, until he had to pry Rodney's fingers off his back. Rodney looked kind of embarassed, but John just patted his hand and got into his Mustang. Rodney had taken the engine apart before he gave it to John, and the car was a perfect dark blue.

John had touched every square inch of the car when it had shown up outside his apartment and called Rodney, total awe in his voice, "I love it, it's gorgeous, what did you do to it?" and Rodney had answered, "I don't know what you're talking about." John had whispered something else to Rodney that made Rodney put his forehead against the refrigerator and sigh. If only Rodney wasn't twelve years old, he might actually get a date with someone more than once in his life. Assuming the waffle house was a date. And he didn't have to buy someone a fucking car to like, win their affection or whatever.

 

Once, when they were trapped off world, and John was sick and afraid, he had told Rodney, half out of his mind, a story about this car. He told Rodney his grandpa had wanted to buy him a car when he was 17, but his dad had said, no, that John had to earn it, which hell, he was okay with. His grandpa had "loaned" him 500 dollars to buy this scrapped out Mustang body that John had worked on in a garage belonging to a father of one of the guys he hung around with Sophomore and Junior years, and slowly, it came together under his hands.

 

John didn't know that the guys at the garage had taken the money he was giving them for extra labor and used it to put more work into the car. His dad did, but he waited to tell John about it when it could actually do some damage. By the last week of summer, the car was finished, and it was a gorgeous midnight blue, it shone with all of John's work and devotion. He had driven around in his car once, staying out all night, driving around the California coast, delighted and in utter awe of himself and the world. When he came back, it was to a stern face telling him they were moving again, and that the car was being sold because they needed the money. When John argued, 'it was his fucking car! and no way are you taking anything else from me!' his father had stared at him, and laughed coldly.

"I told you you had to pay for it yourself, you shit, did you really believe you did that with the money you got from a part time job? Rick's father did most of it for free. Jesus, John, sometimes I think you have no sense at all." John had watched someone else drive away with his life, and wondered what the next test his father would set him up to fail was going to be. John only vaguely remembered telling Rodney that story, and had made him promise never to mention it again, but staring at the car made a tiny part of the 17 year old John that had cried in an empty garage hate a long since dead man a little less. Until he got behind the wheel and he hated him a million times more because Jesus, it was the coolest fucking car ever made. He should have fucking pistol whipped the guy.

John had told Rodney about his grandfather too. His mom's father, just the best grandfather a kid could ever have, telling John about the black Irish, how they started with Spanish Armada crashing on the coast of Ireland, and stories about War World Two, when he'd been in the beginnings of the Air Force, and how he'd met Johnny Cash long before he was Johnny Cash. His grandfather was the kind of guy who knew everyone, and whenever John came to stay with him, he would borrow a Cessna from someone and take John up. John's dad was in the Army, a straight laced man with no sense of humor, and his grandfather and his dad hated each other with a fury.

John had laid against Rodney's shoulder as he told him this, shaking, wrapped up with him in blankets, desperate to stay warm. Rodney told him stories back about pianos, and disappointment, and Jeannie leaving school. About the cloud of their father's displeasure shining over both of them. John had fallen asleep listening to Rodney talk about the sky and how he loved open spaces, because they seemed to take away all his limits. John had woken up warm on his own, listening to Rodney snoring softly, and fallen a little bit in love with him.

When John's dad was dying, John was newly thirty and had to listen to him tell John that John should be grateful for how he raised him, because John would be a better man for it. John didn't know how to tell him how wrong he was, that all he had accomplished was to strip out all the good things his mother had worked so hard to give to John. All that was left over now was someone half empty and tired already, not even half way through his life.

When his father slept, he remembered his mother, dying of ovarian cancer, holding him in her bed, screaming at his dad outside the door. Refusing to let him inside, not even one inch. He remembered the look of cold hate on his grandfather's face when his mom had died, and his dad had pried John off her, begging and crying for her to come back. To not leave him alone here, to take him with her. The urge never really left him.

Rodney had passed the car in front of someone's house when he got lost, again, going home. He had sat there for three hours bitching at himself about being a moron, until he finally went in and bought John his dream car to try to make up for his dead mother. It was a little jumbled in his head, and he pretty much immediately planned to start lying about being the one to buy it, even if no one else on Earth even fucking knew John was alive, much less knew some pathetic story about what a loser John's dad was.

Rodney was holding onto some dim hope that if John molested the car a lot, somehow that might transmit to John molesting Rodney. In the car. Or not in the car. Well, not in the car, it would probably screw up his back even more than all the rest of the damage John had already caused to Rodney's body without the benefit of gay sex.

 

John had taken Mitchell and Teal'c out into the desert where they shot at beer cans and random shit for an afternoon. John had happily told Mitchell that Rodney had given the car to him, he was proud of that. Of course everyone immediately thought he was Rodney's fuck toy or whatever, but John had just shrugged, "I have a Mustang, what do you have?" After that, John just told everyone he paid for the car with blowjobs. Rodney had suggested he could go right ahead and do that, but John had laughed and pushed Rodney off the couch.

"You didn't seriously buy that car because you thought you would get laid, did you?"

"It may have crossed my mind that if I made one perfect gesture in my entire life, I might actually get something good out of it, yes."

John had leaned over into Rodney's face, "You do understand I'm not a hooker, right?"

Rodney waved his hand, "Gesture, you moron, it was the purpose behind it." Rodney carefully left out the part about Teyla also being present for the story, and telling Rodney before they went back to earth to find John a car like that or she would figure out a way to murder him accross the galaxies. Part of Rodney scoffed at that, part of him was also kind of afraid she might find a way.

"So you make up for my dad being an asshole and I'll roll over for you. Wow, that's awesome, Rodney. That kind of makes you a bigger asshole than my dad."

Rodney might possibly have stared at John, and then went down the stairs to set the car on fire, but John had said, "It's okay, that's actually one of the things I like about you," and kissed him.

Rodney had pulled away for a second and asked, "What are the other things?"

John shook his head, "There aren't any," and pretty much did his best to throw out Rodney's back when he jumped on him.

Across the Pond

Teyla watched her people move around the land, setting up tents, and moving clothes and the little food they had been allowed to grab. Relocated. Again. This time by the Ancestors themselves. She sighed, her people did not seem as bothered this time around, but she was, she no longer believed as she one had. She helped Ronon straighten their tent and remembered the first time she wondered about her life. She was fifteen, and had grown her whole life watching her father make endless decisions, and seemingly never a wrong one, until he turned to the side to save his wife, and a Wraith drained all of his life. Her mother was taken anyway.

Teyla had been too far to stop the events but close enough to see it all. She slumped against a tree and screamed to the Ancestors that why on the same day was she to be both an orphan and a leader to her people. Later she had thought it a gift, to lose her family, but gain everyone else's, but that day she felt nothing but emptiness and sorrow. She had looked ahead, through the screaming, and the chaos, and killed her first Wraith.

Ronon had been quiet for days. He was unhappy without John to follow, and he shadowed Teyla as she moved from tent to tent, speaking to her people, making sure they were settling in. She was thinking of the new harvests they would have to start, and whether she would be able to get seed from the same place as usual since Ronon had made trade there more difficult. She wondered if the Ancients were eating the bread they made right now. She tried to stop going down that path, but it was difficult. All that work to start over, to give everyone a better life, thrown off again. She felt the weight of her father's boots upon her feet, and she did not fill them.

Ronon was crouched by the back of the tent, stirring soup, he had forbidden Teyla to cook the minute they stepped through the Ring. Ronon still had not told her much about his family, only bits and pieces. He was an only child, his parents had been in love in a way that even now filled him with hope. They had died in an accident, covered with rock and he had become part of a doomed army.

He smiled at her when she woke up, unsure of herself in the middle of the night. He had said nothing when she cried because she found a letter John had left in her knapsack. Rodney had written on it too, telling her to be careful, and stay with Ronon. John had written about the city, and things about Earth, and a lot of words that didn't mean anything to here other than how much John didn't want to leave.

The next day, she had trained with the best fighters among them, and beaten them all. It was never enough, people were taken from her no matter what she did. She fought harder, and tried to stop thinking. Ronon followed her lead for the most point, letting her talk, letting her move around him in form. He was angry, she could see it shimmer beneath his movements, follow his hand as it sliced through the air.

She wished she could be all people for him, but he was too far past that now anyway. He smiled at her, and wrapped his arms around her waist, lifting her, before throwing her into the lake. He ran away as she cursed behind him, letting her work out her thoughts as she chased after him, worthy prey for a relentless hunter.

Ronon stared up at the open sky, watching the clouds move in formation. Sheppard had told him once they formed shapes. They had laid out on a balcony as Sheppard pointed out a bunch of animals Ronon had never seen or heard of, later Rodney had called it a waste of time, but Sheppard had leaned over and started pointing out ZPMs in the clouds and Rodney kind of let it go.

"Look, power crystals!"

"Okay, shut up now."

Ronon had fallen asleep outside listening to John and Rodney bitching at each other, just as he was listening to Teyla's easy breathing beside him now. He rolled over on the mattress and pushed his face in the pillow, he could hear the people outside their tent, still laughing around the fire. It was strange being around this many people still, and in Atlantis, he could get away easier, hide in a corner, lurk in the shadows. Here someone was always underfoot, it reminded him of home almost, only these people didn't really feel at all like Satedans. Ronon mostly stuck to Teyla's side and tried not to picture this village burning because he was there. If he yelled out in his sleep, no one ever mentioned it to him. He wouldn't be the only one.

He missed Sheppard, but it was like missing his entire planet, something hard to think about, or wrap his mind around. So he thought about missing McKay instead, wondering if Rodney was off on his planet annoying Sheppard right now. Ronon ran around the encampment five times every morning, just to make sure everything looked the same. He kept waiting for something to fall out of the trees and come at him, but it was only the white aftershocks in his mind that ever posed a danger.

He wondered if Teyla was bitter knowing her beliefs had been false, that her Ancestors were nothing like their stories. She didn't seem to be, but her calmness could turn aside a lot of things, hide them in the strength of her arms, the roll of her shoulders. He completed his second loop and paused. The gate was opening, he could hear it. He started running towards the sound, a small part of him almost wishing for it to be everything he didn't want to see. He figured that was the best thing he had in common with Sheppard, and moved forward.


End file.
